Government

House GOP Delays Highway-Transit Bill Until Early 2012

House Republicans' planned multiyear surface-transportation oil-and-gas drilling measure won't be ready this year. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the bill would hike domestic oil and gas production "and use those [energy] revenues to repair and improve … roads and bridges."

On Dec. 17, Boehner said he was hopeful the not-yet-introduced measure would clear the House by the end of December. But Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) said on Nov. 30 the bill won't move until early 2012.

Lawmakers' deadline is March 31, when a highway-transit stopgap expires. It is the eighth extension since Sept. 30, 2009, when the last long-term statute lapsed.

As ENR's former Washington Bureau Chief, Tom Ichniowski wrote about the federal government since the George H.W. Bush administration, and covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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